


Lieutenant Hale

by rvst



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Royalty, F/F, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-13
Updated: 2014-09-13
Packaged: 2018-02-17 05:04:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2297558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rvst/pseuds/rvst
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>General Hale brooded in a darkened corner while King Scott settled at the table for a long night of protecting his Queen. Whom he loved. Romantically. How dare you suggest otherwise. He will have Ser Pretty-Yet-Damaged glare at you mercilessly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lieutenant Hale

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BootsnBlossoms](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BootsnBlossoms/gifts).



The kingdom of Beacon Hills was a small yet powerful one. Its king rode out with the army for every battle while the queen ruled the homeland with a smile and an iron fist. The workers toiled happily while the lords and ladies endlessly fought among themselves, vying for more power, more land and above all, the head of the king on a platter. As such, both King Scott and Queen Lydia, as advised by their closest companions, were under nearly constant guard.

For the king, the Grand Master of Letters suggested the imposing yet exceptionally incompetent at his job General Hale to act as guard. Master Stilinski noted in the official records that General Hale, while his failings in his current position were numerable, he distinguished himself well while climbing through the ranks. He also displayed nearly fanatical loyalty and was famous throughout the kingdom for being the only member of his family to be worth anything after his uncle's famous rebellion.

Easy choice, although King Scott protested endlessly.

The Master of the Hunt was having a slightly harder time in her search. Especially after Queen Lydia refused her offer to just do the damn job herself.

So she searched. And searched, had lunch, then searched some more. She searched for such a long time that the king himself took interest in her troubles. He arrived in the middle of the night, his bodyguard trailing dutifully behind him.

General Hale brooded in a darkened corner while King Scott settled at the table for a long night of protecting his Queen. Whom he loved. Romantically. How dare you suggest otherwise. He will have Ser Pretty-Yet-Damaged glare at you mercilessly.

King Scott suggested that he shadow his wife. The book that came flying at his head was deeply unappreciated. Ser Argent had lost all of her humor after the tragic death of her mother and aunt, though she was caught smiling in the company of the queen. But Queen Lydia tended to have that effect on everyone she met, even Ser Grump let himself grin around her.

"She's not going to like anyone we pick," announced the king when the sun broke through the skyline. Ser Argent hummed in agreement.

"Nor is she going to think they can do anything to protect her."

They sat in the morning silence.

"What we need is someone we can trust, someone we know," mused the king. The Master of the Hunt rolled her eyes, she knew as well as anyone that Queen Lydia trusted King Scott, Master Stilinski, Captain Lahey and maybe General Hale. "Stiles' father?"

"You're telling Stiles you're putting his dad in mortal peril," fired back Ser Argent, smug grin on her face.

A bird landed outside the window, General Hale growled at it and the poor bastard fled for its life. His stomach also growled at him. Derek, in addition to being hungry and tired, was rapidly adding bored to the list.

He went to the military records piled high on the round oak table, rifled through them for several minutes and came up with a carefully bound, up to date book of all the soldiers in King Scott's army. The general flipped through it and stopped nearly halfway through, after the officers, but before the mass of ground troops.

General Hale presented the book, leaving Ser Argent with it and dragging the king off with only three words tossed over his shoulder.

"She's my sister!"

The Master of the Hunt read the double page entry. Another surviving Hale. A lieutenant even!

"Lydia just might tolerate you."

* * *

 

The economic wing of the Royal Ministry met once per month with the queen. Were you to ask any member, you would be quickly told that they met with the king. The noble class preferred it that way and no one was interested in another civil war less than ten years after the last one.

Queen Lydia entered after everyone else already settled themselves. None of the men could figure out how she did this but several of them thought it was a royal gift from God. One of the newer members was convinced that the queen must surely be a witch.

Lydia surveyed the room, ignoring the usual leering from the witch-guy and making a mental note to learn what exactly he did in this wing of the ministry.

One of the ministers evidently brought their bodyguard to the meeting. The hooded figure sitting in the corner of the room was the only one not to stand when the queen entered. She didn't notice, too focused on the meeting ahead.

The economic machinations of the kingdom honestly bored Lydia, too simple. Grow this, sell that. Boringly routine. She listened to them though, it was one of the many things she did to avoid becoming idle.

The Minister for Agriculture droned on and on about the latest grain yields being higher than expected, something that the bodyguard found important enough to write down in their leather bound book. Lydia noticed this with no small amount of unease.

The Head of the Blacksmith Guild, a guest of the meeting, stood to give his yearly update on technological expansion and process streamlining when there was a sudden snap behind him. The bodyguard set the book on the floor next to their chair, carefully and respectfully.

They stood, commanding the attention of the entire room. Even the queen stared. Light boots made no sound as they crossed the room to grab the Minister of Vineyards and Wineries by his collar, roughly hauling him to his feet. A whimper escaped his lips as he was thrown against the wall.

Lydia opened her mouth to stop the bodyguard's assault before the incident snowballed into a major political conflict that she had neither the time nor the care to deal with. Her command was quickly halted by the clattering of metal onto stone. They turned their eyes downward, queen and ministers alike, to the shining dagger resting peacefully on the floor next to the startled minister's feet.

The bodyguard kicked the weapon away from the now bright red man. He lunged at the queen, screaming bloody murder and ranting about witches and possession. The bodyguard tackled him to the ground, planting one foot firmly on the stone floor and a knee painfully on his spine. The minister whined about brutality.

"What is the meaning of this?" Queen Lydia demanded of the bodyguard. The concealed head turned towards her.

"He's a known associate of local witch-burners, your majesty," answered a female voice from underneath the hood. The minister struggled against her hold so she gripped his hair and slammed his head into the stone. "The weapon was not concealed well either."

"Liar!" He fought harder against the weight on his back, the woman responded by striking at his neck. The minister stilled.

One of the younger ministers opened the door to call for guards while the queen continued staring at the woman. Slender, and short, she was clothed in dark grey clothing, no armor to speak of but she wore gloves and a cloak. Lydia watched as she stood, allowing the guards to drag the would-be assassin out of the room.

The bodyguard pulled back her hood, revealing a neat braid of brown hair and a vaguely familiar face. Lydia wrestled with her memories, attempting to place the woman's pale face. Her searching was interrupted by a loudmouth minister striding around the table to harshly grab at the bodyguard's hand, shaking it vigorously.

"The king obviously acted just in time, eh?"

"The king did what?" Lydia asked, confused. For a single moment she caught herself thinking, Scott isn't a woman, or that pretty. He smiled too.

"King Scott assigned me from the border patrol to guard your life, your majesty," explained the bodyguard, Lydia's bodyguard apparently. She moved back to her chair and crouched to pull an envelope from inside her book. Lydia scrutinized her closely as the letter was handed to her.

It held the king's wax seal, she broke it to find a note from Allison. Lydia skimmed it, aware of all the eyes on her.

'...Lieutenant Cora Hale...trustworthy...co-conspirator in Lord Peter's assassination...'

Lydia frowned, "you killed your own uncle?"

"Uh no, I held off his guards while my cousin dealt with him," Lieutenant Hale answered, shifting her cloak and toying with her book. "He was wanted dead or alive for treason anyway, your majesty."

"Well then, Lieutenant, bounty hunter to bodyguard, interesting career trajectory," said Lydia before turning and leaving the room. Cora eyed the remaining men in the room suspiciously, satisfying herself that they didn't constitute a threat to the queen and followed.

* * *

That night, the king sat at his desk, finishing some paperwork before bed.

"How dare you!"

Scott winced, his wife could really yell when she was angry. Lydia rushed into their bedchambers, removing layers of clothing as she went, her face splotched with red and her footfalls heavy.

"I do not need a bodyguard any more than you do, Scott," she protested, no longer yelling at him. Scott put that in the win column. "Captain Lahey and the entire castle guard are running a betting pool. 'How long will it take the king to beat up his own bodyguard?' Personally, I give you another week."

He went to argue with her, but remembered loudly discussing the very subject with Stiles when the subject of bodyguards came up in the first place. "Good point."

"All my points are good, dear husband," snapped Lydia. She removed the last of her day clothing, sinking with a sigh into their truly massive bed. "She's unnecessary."

"She wasn't actually doing anything important out on the border," Scott muttered to himself. "She stopped an assassination attempt," was what he pointed out to his wife.

"She helped with an assassination!"

"She's Derek's sister!"

"Is the idiocy hereditary?"

"I don't think so," answered Scott, pondering the two Hale's service records. "Though that may be a case of comparing apples and oranges."

Lydia glared.

"Give it a week, please?" Scott begged. His wife huffed and crossed her arms.

"Fine, but one bit of Hale-stupid and she's gone, clear?"

King Scott nodded rapidly, rapturous to have finally almost kind of won an argument with his wife.

* * *

"There are rumors," starter Cora, walking beside the queen on her weekly stroll through the enchanted forest, "that there won't be an heir to the throne."

Two months. Lydia could not find fault with her personal guard, so she spent the last two months being trailed by the damn woman. With her questions that weren't questions, her nigh impossible fingers on the pulse of the castle and her big pretty eyes with the smile and the hair and the-

Lydia cut off her own train of thought.

"We've decided to adopt." This was the only answer anyone outside the inner circle ever got. "The king and I are strong believers in merit over nepotism, despite our choices in personal safety."

"Oh."

"Oh?"

"The Captain of the Guard told me that it's a political marriage with no real love in it," Cora stated, staring at the queen.

"Isaac has a big mouth," Lydia replied, taking care to step over a particularly gnarly tree root. "And I do love Scott, but like a brother."

"Ah."

Lydia smirked, "I guess that's an improvement on 'oh'"

Cora stopped. Her arm flung out to stop Lydia as well. She tilted her head. Lydia tensed as arms encircled her waist and pulled. They landed on the harsh forest floor, Cora doing her best to land underneath the queen.

Seconds passed, Lydia heard horses off in the distance. Cora moved so her lips were right next to the queen's ear and whispered, "no one is scheduled to be in the forest right now."

They lay still for long minutes, Cora flipping them over when the horses came closer, her eyes constantly scanning their surroundings for signs of the attackers. The stillness lasted for nearly an hour.

"I think they're gone," Cora assessed. She started to push herself upwards, but was stopped by a delicate hand on her neck.

No, they're not, we should stay here a while longer," whispered the queen as she pulled her bodyguard's lips onto her own.

Cora melted into the embrace, trying her very best not to think about what the king was doing with her brother.

 


End file.
